Blogaround

1. All 81 Sudoku Digits Completed In 14 seconds! (2021) A 33-minute sudoku solve video- in this one, Simon fills in the ENTIRE grid with colors before even getting 1 digit. I love it.

2. Where did these guys come from? (September 16) "I’ve never heard a sermon on Ezra 10:15. There should be sermons on this passage. Lots of them. It should be the stuff of altar calls and bonfire dedications reserved for the last night of Bible camp or youth-group retreats. This should be one of those verses that appears on T-shirts and bumper stickers, inspirational posters and tattoos. It should’ve been one of the verses that Tim Tebow penciled into his eye-black."

(And, related to that, here's the Ezra fanfic I wrote a while ago: Love Wins (an Ezra fanfic))

3. Gray-Ace & Gray-Aro Survey: Results (September 16)

4. Mainland China reports first imported monkeypox case (September 17) 

5. “My Chains Are Gone”: When White Evangelicals Sing About Slavery (2021) "This is perhaps the central irony of White evangelicalism’s continued use of these images: those whose theology leads them to sing the most of enslavement and freedom as the central metaphor of Christian salvation are simultaneously the group most likely to downplay the significance of slavery’s lasting impact on the people of the United States and promote (or at least not oppose) policies that do harm to African Americans—the one group that knows the ongoing injustice and traumatic effects of enslavement."

6. Parents shocked that Christian school will kick out openly LGBTQ students (September 19) "You almost want to pat her on the head for being such a decent human being that she couldn’t imagine a Christian school doing anything this monstrous."

7. Is Joe Biden The Best President Unions Have Ever Had? And If Not, Why Not? (September 20) "The difference between Biden and most other presidents, though, is that through most of American history, the actions of presidents have been to just crush the union. In 1877, railroads forced workers out on strike in West Virginia after reducing pay for the second time in a year; soon the Great Railroad Strike swept the nation as a general protest against the dominance of the railroads over the lives of Americans — polluting them, killing them on the job and in the cities, dominating the economy through corruption, laying them off. President Rutherford B. Hayes sent the military to crush it, turning a nonviolent strike into a bloodbath."

8. The Cruel Story Behind The 'Reverse Freedom Rides' (2020) "Fuming over the civil rights movement, Southern segregationists had concocted a way to retaliate against Northern liberals. In 1962, they tricked about 200 African Americans from the South into moving north. The idea was simple: When large numbers of African Americans showed up on Northern doorsteps, Northerners would not be able to accommodate them. They would not want them, and their hypocrisy would be exposed." Relevant now because of what Texas and Florida are doing to immigrants.

Lying to people, transporting them hundreds of miles, and just leaving them there, to make a political point. Aren't these Republican politicians worried about going to hell?

DeSantis claims credit for sending 2 planes carrying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts (September 15) "'Our island jumped into action putting together 50 beds, giving everyone a good meal, providing a play area for the children, making sure people have the healthcare and support they need,' Fernandes wrote in another tweet. 'We are a community that comes together to support immigrants.'"

Migrants on Martha's Vineyard flight say they were told they were going to Boston (September 15)

I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

9. Patagonia company owner gives it away to Planet Earth in perpetuity (September 16) 

10. On the Operating Table, Supply Chain Issues Can Be Life or Death (September 20) "Five cardiovascular surgeons across China told Sixth Tone that the country has been suffering a shortage of artificial grafts since early in the pandemic, aggravated by the two-month lockdown of Shanghai."

11. Data polls and money polls (September 21) "Every other month, at least, we get news articles and commentary fretting about some recent poll showing that some allegedly worrisome percentage of some group either believes in something apparently anathema or else refuses to believe in something that’s supposed to be elementary and fundamental for that group."

12. Died: Ron Sider, Evangelical Who Pushed for Social Action (July 28) "For nearly 50 years, Sider called evangelicals to care about the poor and see poverty as a moral issue. He argued for an expanded understanding of sin to include social structures that perpetuate inequality and injustice, and urged Christians to see how their salvation should compel them to care for their neighbors."